Complete 6 pages APA formatted article: Public Anthropology in Medicalization. Applying anthropology to medicalization helps identify the past and present medicalization progresses. This work gives an

Complete 6 pages APA formatted article: Public Anthropology in Medicalization. Applying anthropology to medicalization helps identify the past and present medicalization progresses. This work gives an overview of contemporary public anthropology on medicalization.

Medicalization is a process that largely relies on a society’s cultural and social practices. The way people get sick and the choices they make regarding their treatment also rely on these practices and differs within various cultures existing in a society. The way people in ancient days responded to medicalization differs compared to current medicalization processes due to advancements in medical technology, inter-professional or organizational contests or social movements and interest groups.

Causes of diseases or illnesses differ according to culture, in that what one culture takes as a cause may not be a cause in another culture. Likewise, treatment methods among these cultures also differ because they have different beliefs about the ability of a particular medicine to heal a disease. Traditional beliefs on methods used in treating diseases differ from current practices (Bell & Figert, 2012). For example, traditional people believed in the use of healing plants to treat their illnesses as opposed to today where people rely on manufactured drugs for the treatment of diseases, although there are some who still believe in herbal medicine.

Many changes have occurred in the medicalization field. There is an expanding practice on medicalization, which has led to these changes (Nye, 2003). Research also presents the impact of social forces on medicalization and the effect it brings to people’s social lives. These forces have impacted on people’s lives such that illnesses that people considered normal and treated them without medicine have now gone on the line of being given medical attention. These according to Brandeis University (2010) include conditions like menopause, normal infertility in pregnancy.